Be my guide: Eclectic duo on Albuquerque streets really clowns around

For my second-to-last stop before arriving in Los Angeles on my two-week, reader-driven road trip, I was in search of something different. I had hoped to find some traditional Spanish- or Mexican-inspired music or a country and western group — anything besides the usual cover bands and interchangeable rock acts.

Based on bars that readers had recommended in Albuquerque, I stumbled over the same old stuff.  Just as I was about to give up hope, I came across two wonderfully eclectic guys performing in an unlikely venue.

Singing unusual tunes about clowns with a gruff yet compassionate voice, John Keith fingered the keys of his accordion in the doorway of an unoccupied office building.  His partner in crime — well, it looked like  you may not need a permit to play on the streets of Albuquerque, so what they were doing may not have been illegal— was Zoltan Szekely, a Hungarian musician who plays the Frankenstein of instruments.

Szekely’s contraption contained an acoustic guitar that had been converted to electric, thanks to a homemade pickup. Taped to the top of that was a ukulele that had been tuned to sound like a banjo. Why not just play a banjo? “This fits better,” Szekely said of his handiwork.

Also taped to the neck of the guitar was a bicycle horn and, below that, a cymbal. And (in a TV infomercial pitchman’s voice) that’s not all! Throughout every song, he tapped his foot on a tambourine to keep a beat. Even in live performances with the full, five-piece Zoltan Orkestar, Szekely plays his mutant instrument.

Listen to a live performance of “Eskimo the Clown” by Zoltan Orkestar

Yes, these two wild guys are indeed a part of an actual band that plays at bars and on live radio programs. The band also includes a drummer, a bassist and Szekely’s wife, who has a beautiful voice as evidenced by the demos on their MySpace page.

When I asked what their influences are, Keith cringed. They admit to pulling from traditional Hungarian music and classical jazz,  and there’s also that signature western vibe that peeks from behind the music of another Albuquerque native, the Shins.

Zoltan Orkestar covers mainstream jazz songs and sings about misunderstood clowns and acrobatics. “A lot of circuses came through my town when I was a kid,” said Szekely, a Romanian-born, Hungarian-raised and eventually Pennsylvania transplant.

For the holiday, the the band plays tonight at Burt’s Tiki Lounge. Their crowd, they said, will probably consist of older jazz fans itching to hear obscure cover songs and alternative rock listeners looking for something weird .

Last night, Launchpad, a pick by readers Jesse Herron and Natalie Rogers, hosted some gruesome-sounding metal bands with equally gruesome names such as Torture Victim. Rogers’ other suggestion, Bert’s, had a screamo band with noticeable potential for mainstream growth.

But the highlight of the night was standing in an archway on Route 66 for nearly an hour, watching Keith yodel and Szekely frantically switch from finger-picking a guitar to strumming a ukulele to slapping a cymbal to honking a horn, all the while sounding a tambourine with his right foot — and executing all of this with impeccable fluidity.

My last stop before Los Angeles will be the Las Vegas Strip, where I’ll spend the weekend. Start sending those Sin City recommendations and any ideas for my first night in L.A. on Monday.

To provide travel tips for my reader-driven road trip, inspired by music, send e-mails to mark.milian@latimes.com, leave comments on the Los Angeles Times Daily Travel & Deal Blog or, for those on Twitter, send tweets to @mmilian. To follow my road trip status live, visit http://twitter.com/mmilian. For the trip schedule and cities, check out earlier posts.

—Mark Milian, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Photo: John Keith , left, and Zoltan Szekely, two-fifths of Zoltan Orkestar, playing on the streets of Albuquerque. Credit: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 1:25 pm by Mark Milian and is filed under Arts & Culture, Be My Guide, California, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice, Summer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.